Friday, October 29, 2010

Why Not On Public Baths in KL?

A few days ago, Malaysiakini reported on one of the agendas of the ETP ( Najib's Economic Transformation Program) is to turn KL into a entertainment hub as to boost tourism. This means more nightclubs in the key parts of town, in addition to Bukit Bintang already. And of course this has met with objection by PAS because they claim that having more of these things can "corrupt the mind of the young".

2. The government was bankrupt and had no qualms of gambling with the people's moral values, adding that it wanted to 'drug' them into forgetting the mess that the country was in.

"This plan is to drug the people with the opium of entertainment so that they forget about the calamity of corruption which befell us and pushed us to the 56th position in the corruption index," said Idris, referring to the latest Corruption Perception Index prepared by Transparency International. - Idris Ahmad, PAS

Hmm... if having more entertainment centres can sometimes give excuses for PAS to say it's no good for the young and so forth, I might as well suggest DBKL or the Federal Territories Ministry to open many public baths around KL. Sounds crazy? No, this is not crazy. In fact in Japan, there are many public baths in each of the major megalopolises around Japan. You name it, Kobe, Osaka, Tokyo, Hiroshima, you can find hundreds in each of the megalopolis there.

Well, you have a bulk of the population in KL working from 8.30 to 6.30 p.m at most where after work, many would go and have dinner or perhaps go home to spend time with their families. I think, isn't it better to use that money to build public baths around the city? Surely, people after work would need of a very good soothing bath (a.l.a Japanese concept) . For a reasonable fee per person, a person can go in, go for a bath, do a bath scrub and then come out fresh for dinner and then back home. But if the government or a local council should be running just to make sure to mean that ETP program is running!

How to get the resources? That's the next question. Well, the government already has money a.k.a startup money to do so, that they only need to identify certain places, get ready with lockers, bathing facilities, hey even abandoned shops that can be renovated and turned it into public baths with the facilities. Since water comes from SYABAS, the money they pay for the water goes back to Selangor state government resources. Electricity, of course back to TNB and then running a public bath requires less than 10 people to run it. Four operators on shifts, Four on maintenance work and another two on housekeeping maximum. Of course, they need to look for a bigger space to run because when this is open to business, expect hundreds of working men and women coming in for the bath.

But the 10 people running a public bath cannot afford to be slack or else they would be thrashed left and right for their slackness.

Isn't this much better to use the money as in the ETP? Just maybe one or two more entertainment centres while the rest on public baths that DBKL or FT Ministry runs it? In fact it can be a worthwhile investment as more people swamp in that could even offset the upkeeping! Weird idea, right? Well, check out a Sento model here!! That's what the human brain is for! To think!